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me, You see, senhor, that when one has so good a saint he ought to keep his vows, instead of doing as some do whom I know, who are in the habit of forgetting their engagements as soon as the difficulty is over.'

Such is the credulity that prevails among the negroes of Bahia, This simplicity, which is not always unattended by a wild violence of disposition, is a heritage of the early times of the conquistadores,

The ancient Brazilian characteristics, so vividly impressed upon Bahia, become more and more marked as you recede from the coast. Before leaving this old civilization of Brazil to observe at Rio Janeiro the first manifestations of a new life, perhaps it would be preferable to contemplate the Brazilian eidade in a state still less advanced than at Pernambuco and Bahia, under the aspect it presents in the interior of the country, and especially in the provinces formerly exploited by the mineiros. It is here, at Ouro Preto, Goyaz, Cuyaba, etc., that the traces of the past are deepest and most striking. There is no longer an exchange; there are no theatres, no museums. Huts of mud suffice the inhabitants, and the ruins of convents take the place of schools. A population become half-savage through the crossing of races and the isolation in which it lives, exists within these creviced walls without employment or any idea of the advantages of life. The most desolate parts of Abruzzia or Calabria can alone give any idea of these regions, which were formerly so flourishing. The creoles no longer strive with each other here, except in ignorance and idleness. The churches, even, built by the piety of their ancient founders, are to-day for the most part as dilapidated as the dwellings of the simplest of the inhabitants. One might sometimes imagine himself in one of those large villages of the Cordilleras periodically visited by earthquakes. Those towns in which the passage of caravans keep up some activity, like São João del Rey, are frequently those that most sadden the European, It is true that the rudeness of the inhabitants is explained by their origin. The first colonists of these provinces were peasants from the mountains of Portugal. Enriched by traffic, they knew not how to profit by their change of fortune, and remained in ignorance, with the addition of pride, The muleteers, who compose nearly all their patrons, are poorly qualified to inspire them with ideas of civilization and progress. When occasionally these Portuguese of the old stamp attempt, in the celebration of some festivity, to improvise a drama, one cannot repress a smile at the spectacle, in which the serious and the grotesque are so strangely blended. It is not rare to see a Greek tragedy represented by painted mulattoes, dressed in cast-off French or Portuguese garments, and with any number of sabres and poniards,

The few men of intelligence and energy to be met here and there among these lost populations, seem to have little hope of drawing them from their ignorance. They express themselves on this subject with singular frankness, to judge by the language used by a mineciro a few years since, in conversing with a French traveller.

'My countrymen,' said he, 'always wear their shirts out at the elbows, because they cannot stand without propping themselves up. On Monday they rest from the fatigue of listening to mass a quarter of an hour on Sunday; on Tuesday they set the negroes to work in their place; on Wednesday and Thursday they are obliged to go on a hunt to obtain a little meat; they must fish on Friday and Saturday, because those are fast-days; and on Sunday they repose after the labors of the week, If a tree falls across the road, they make a path around it through the woods, and come into the road again on the other side.